Midweek Matters: Extended stay deals

As a hotelier, are you noticing a drop in midweek bookings? It’s a prevalent issue throughout the global hotel industry; many find that whilst their weekend bookings prosper and are often close to being fully booked, their occupancy rates plummet throughout the week. In this month's Midweek Matters, FLOCC, the hotel marketing agency that specialises in maximising direct bookings, will delve into how you can offer deals on extended stays as a method to increase your hotel's midweek bookings. Offering customers a discounted rate on extended stays as an incentive to book throughout the week is guaranteed to help you capitalise on midweek bookings. Why not advertise a discount code for guests to use on Friday or Sunday bookings, which will offer them money off when they extend their stay by booking on either Thursday or Monday. Not only will this tempt potential guests into booking with you for longer, but it will maximise the number of weekday bookings your hotel receives. Paid Ads Running paid ads requires a lot of thought, no matter your brand. There are a variety of factors that you’ll need to consider before running the ads and to improve their performance for the future, you’ll need to track their progress and work out where people are dropping off and why. Understanding your audience is key to a successful PPC campaign, which is why you’ll need to tailor your ads toward something they’ll want to see. Successful ads typically include something that is going to persuade the user to click on them, such as a deal or offer. Running your extended stay campaign through paid ads is a great way to gain traction and ensure that your deal is getting noticed, therefore increasing your ROI. Remember to include a sense of urgency in your PPC ads; phrases like “book now” and “last chance to book” often convince users that they’ll need to jump on the deal before it ends. As with every campaign, your visitors are going to land somewhere. Directing the advertisement to your hotel's homepage is going to sway users from booking, as many will not want to put in the effort to find the right page on the site that they need to go to. Creating a specific landing page for your extended stay offer, that provides information on the deal and leads users directly to where they can book from is going to increase your hotel's chances of converting visitors into guests. Make sure that the discount code or deal is clearly showcased on the page and that it's easy to navigate - remember, your goal is to prevent users from abandoning the site and instead, book their midweek stay with you. Extended stay offers are an effective solution to the midweek booking blues, and provide guests with an incentive to stay longer, for less. The best way to ensure you’re successful in these campaigns is to run PPC ads, alongside social media posts to gain attention and shift users into paying customers. Don’t forget to do your research, understand your audience and choose your keywords wisely when running the ads - to help maximise direct bookings, promote the advertisement as a deal that is only available directly through you (rather than OTAs). For our expertise and that extra bit of help increasing your hotel’s midweek bookings, get in touch with our team here at FLOCC.